‘The Construction of a Poverty Impact Index’

The Global Studies Seminar welcomes Gary Baker, professor of modern languages, and Cheryl Johnson, instructional technologist in modern languages, Rachel Elfman ’18 and Corbin Smith ’17 presenting “The Construction of a Poverty Impact Index in a Global Value Chain.”

This discussion will share the steps involved in implementing a group project that entails tracing the production and distribution of commodities through the complex network of global value chains. The success of the project is dependent on artfully building a bridge between economic, social and cultural elements and the crucial learning goal of the semester course is the building of an awareness of global divisions of labor, inequality, and uneven development.

Throughout the semester, students are building awareness about global working conditions by collecting, visualizing and analyzing data. Key questions that students are required to consider include the circumstances under which the commodity is produced, who produces it in terms of native versus imported labor and who are the primary consumers of the item. The culminating activity leads to a construction of a Poverty Impact Index (PII), envisioning the poverty impact index as a potential indicator on packaging of products that will inform the consumer of the socio-economic status of the producer of the product.

Denison University’s Global Studies Seminars are interdisciplinary intellectual forums to discuss and debate academic and policy issues of global importance.